COLUMBUS — The Ohio School Boards Association’s (OSBA) Delegate Assembly today approved a number of changes to the association’s legislative platform. The platform conveys to legislators, policymakers, the public and the media where OSBA stands on issues impacting public education.
The Delegate Assembly is made up of representatives of public school districts from around the state. Delegates held their annual meeting today during OSBA’s 60th annual Capital Conference and Trade Show. Nearly 10,000 school board members, administrators and other education leaders regularly attend the annual conference at the Greater Columbus Convention Center. The conference runs through Nov. 11.
Delegates approved amendments supporting legislation that:
• Holds charter/community schools and their operators to the same compliance and reporting requirements as public schools.
• Requires a charter/community school receiving public tax dollars to disclose performance metrics, including, but not limited to, the overall performance index and four-year graduation rate on all advertising.
• Prohibits a charter/community school from advertising if that school does not meet or report minimum academic and/or financial standards established by the state of Ohio.
• Requires that schools accepting voucher students be held to the same performance reporting requirements as public schools.
• Separately appropriates all lottery profits funding to be allocated to districts on a per-pupil basis.
Delegates approved an amendment opposing legislation that:
• Provides facilities funding to private and charter/community schools.
The Delegate Assembly also added a new plank to the platform addressing school transportation. That plank supports transportation-related legislation that:
• Provides sufficient funding for every child who rides a school bus.
• Rewards schools for efficiency.
• Incentivizes school districts to transport students residing within one to two miles of their school.
• Incentivizes school districts to provide transportation for high school students.
• Fully compensates districts for transporting students to schools that are not part of the district.
• Provides for better support of rural districts with low density and low wealth.
• Mandates that transportation funding operates separately from the education funding formula to ensure districts actually receive the state transportation levels to which they are entitled.
• Reinstates funding for school bus purchases.
NORTHEAST OHIO SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER IS 2016 OSBA PRESIDENT-ELECT – The Ohio School Boards Association Delegate Assembly has elected Denise Baba as the association’s 2016 president-elect. Baba serves on the Streetsboro City Board of Education in Portage County.
She was elected today during the Annual Business Meeting of the OSBA Delegate Assembly. The delegates meet each year at the Capital Conference, the association’s state convention that draws nearly 10,000 school board members, administrators and other education leaders to Columbus.
Current OSBA President-elect Eric K. Germann, a member of the Lincolnview Local and Vantage Career Center school boards in Van Wert County, will become the new OSBA president on Jan. 1, 2016.
